Degrees Of Love And Separation
by SlashMyDreams
Summary: April is the cruellest month. Regulus Black just wanted to be like his older brother. Regulus/Sirius


_April is the cruellest month, breeding  
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing  
Memory and desire, stirring  
Dull roots with spring rain. _**– The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot **

Years after the war had ended, biographies of Sirius Black would say that the two brothers never got on, that they were just too different, that Sirius himself had never had anything in common with the people who should have been, but failed to be, his proper family. They would praise Sirius for escaping, freeing himself of the blood purists, his parents, his brother. They would call Sirius a hero for overcoming their emotional abuse and attempted brainwashing, claim that the Marauders were the only people who'd ever really loved him, with whom he'd ever belong. The few tolerant free-thinkers, condemned by the post-war pro-Gryffindor ministry, would say that the war tore them apart.

Regulus would've laughed, that cruel, chillingly musical laughter he reserved for those he generally considered inferior, mudbloods and Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, and the laughter would've turned into breathless gasps as Sirius tugged his hair back and pressed him into the armchair by the window, next to the stuffed raven with the sinister gleaming eyes, perched on the edge of the mahogany mantelpiece.

Sirius would've snarled in his ear, "I'm a fucking hero, you little bastard,", even as his clenched hands and their sharp nails dug into his younger brother's ivory thighs, forming dark half-moons of unspoken desire. And Regulus would've arched into him, two matching pieces of a broken puzzle, and half-gasped out, "Only to the Gryffindorks."

* * *

It's 1968 and Minister Leech has finally resigned from office, leaving Gerald Jenrette to take his place. Mother and Father are pleased, because yet again it's one of _them, _one of the old-fashioned purebloods and it seems all is right with the wizarding world again, and really, how arrogant must those blood-traitors have been to imagine they could control the wizarding world without the backing from the old _pureblood _families. Recently there's even been talk about some brilliant young wizard currently abroad, from Slytherin of course, because they were all from Slytherin, their heroes in those days; who'd plan was to follow in the previously great Grindelward's footsteps and change Wizarding Europe back into the good, proper place it once was, not infested with scum like mudbloods and muggle-lovers like that old fool Dumbledore. Regulus has never met Dumbledore.

He hasn't actually met any of these people Mother so disapproves of, but he knows that they must be terribly wicked, because Mother approves of those people in his books, people who invent spells and brew potions and outwit their enemies. Regulus thinks those mudbloods must be terribly stupid if they cannot even do that. He's never done it before himself, he is expressly forbidden to try around Mother and Father, or even his tutor Alexandre Lievens, and it's never even occurred to him to try it out on Sirius, but it all sounds terribly easy. After all, Sherlock Holmes does it all the time and he's a Black, which makes him that fancy word he can't quite remember but which Mother says he is and his parents are always right. It means he's better than them, whoever _they _are, and special, so it all will turn out well for him.

Sirius is special, he decides, watching his brother surrounded by all the others, all the other appropriate purebloods Mother approves of, but who aren't Blacks and so aren't quite as special as them. Being special is pretty lonely he decides, as Sirius sends Oliviere Gouton, who's father is the Magical President of France, to get him another slice of chocolate-caramel torte with whipped cream; and turns around to grin at Regulus; rolling his eyes in the carefree way that only Sirius can manage, equal parts amusement and childish disdain. Regulus smiles and takes a small sip from the glass of mulled wine he'd taken from Olivia Urquehart's hand. In that moment, they could've ruled the world.

* * *

Great-Aunt Charis dies in the spring during Regulus' second year. They never particularly knew her well, but it still stings, another reminder of their fragile mortality, purebloods or not. It sucks really, Regulus thinks, that for all of Mother's lectures about their superiority, lately the Blacks were dying young, especially in wizarding standards. It makes sense to him, in a somewhat twisted way exchanging money and power and position, plain _superiority _in life for shorter life. It used to make sense to Sirius too, before he went away for that first year at Hogwarts, before Mother yelling about his brother's sorting into Gryffindor, before the pranking and the casual cruelty, the occasional mockery of their family, Slytherin, Regulus.

The air is cold despite the shining sun and the general mingling seems tiresome and almost in bad taste, except that they're Blacks and therefore nothing they do is ever in bad taste. Regulus looks around for his brother, lost in the sea of black robes and gleaming hair in the sunlight. Sirius is usually so easy to spot, the perfect Black heir, if one overlooked that horrible business with the sorting hat, right in the middle of whatever social occasion their parents had ever arranged or been invited to. But he's not and Regulus spends long minutes all over the grounds, occasionally being drawn aside to be introduced to yet another apparently influential pureblood by some obscure relation he'd only seen twice in his entire life. Eventually he sees smoke coming from behind the broomshed and a flash of dark fabric, and glances around cautiously. Satisfied that no one is watching, because they're not supposed to just slink away during a family memorial, he wanders over.

It is Sirius, because of course, who else would it be, leaning against the back wall and smoking a muggle cigarette. The smoke curls around him, until he's a perfect picture in greyscale, an old-fashioned photograph seemingly frozen in replay. Regulus can't tear his eyes away from the sight of his brother's coral lips puckered and the pale cigarette stick moving smoothly, gracefully in and out again. He stands there, on the outskirts of the outskirts, unsure which way to move. In the end, Sirius makes that decision for him, turning, the hand with the cigarette outstretched. Regulus thinks it's some sort of twisted Gryffindor test, so he takes it, sticks one end inside his mouth and inhales. He doesn't know how Sirius does it, how anybody could do it, because the instant the smoke reaches his lungs he chokes, doubling over, the damned cigarette flying through the air. Sirius lunges to catch it, but he's too late and it crumbles into the ground at his feet instead. He swears at Regulus and hauls him up roughly by the arm, pinning him against the wall.

"That's not how you fucking do it the first time," he snarls, reaching inside his robes to pull out a muggle lighter and another cigarette. Regulus frowns.

"Why not just use your wand?" he asks. Sirius laughs at him, but it's oddly affectionate, like House barriers didn't apply in holidays that don't even seem real, when winter itself seemed warmer. Regulus huddles his robes closer and watches as his brother flicks the lighter in a sharp downwards motion and for an instant Regulus watches dancing orange flame and bright, electric blue, and thinks of complementary colours in first-edition art textbooks covered in leather he'd once studied under Monsieur Lievens' pale green eyes, as insubstantial as the runny _Muggle_ soap Snape uses.

"It's _fire,_" Sirius says, like it's obvious, and lights the cigarette, and the general inhaling and exhaling seems to be almost an art form graceful and so very much like a Black, despite the very muggleness of those wretched cigarettes. He looks into the distance, as if considering something, and then turns back to Regulus, oddly hesitant. "Hey, try smoking another way."

"How?" Regulus asks, unsure whether he actually wants to, but he's not going to be a coward in front of Sirius just because he hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor, just be because he was a proper Black.

But Sirius doesn't answer, just takes another puff at his cigarette and leans forward, pushing Regulus back until he's almost cornered, has almost nowhere to turn should he wish to escape. Sirius kisses him lightly, lips barely touching, toxic smoke trapped between their mouths. Acting on mere instinct, he presses forward and senses Sirius move his head to the side, jointly deepening the almost kiss. It's like nothing he's ever done before, not like kissing doe-eyed Nora Parkinson in February because Sirius' lips are chapped and rough, and he presses forward with a sense of animal urgency, not merely bored listlessness. His mouth is cold, not covered in slick lipstick and it should feel so wrong, but instead it just feels so right, and he's kissing his own brother behind the broomshed during a memorial. Sirius pulls away, throws the half-burnt out cigarette to the ground and snuffs it out with one twist of soft Italian leather shoes. They stand there together, but neither of them says a word. The moment will pass, but the memory will remain, blurred and half-forgotten. If anything, Regulus thinks, the whole incident made him a little warmer, and it suddenly feels more like the spring it's supposed to be.

* * *

Sirius reads muggle paperbacks deep into the night. Dog-eared, worn copies carefully disguised with smooth wizarding covers and huddled away from his parents ever since Mother had set his previous copy of _The Godfather _on fire with one shrill Incendio. Disturbingly, she'd seemed angrier than that time Kreacher had found the Playwizard James had given him. So now he read, deep into the night and sometimes slept till almost midday. They hadn't caught on yet, and he doubts they would, as they'd never paid much attention to either of their children. Regulus is the problem, though. He's more likely to find out, and snitch, unless Sirius can figure out some way to ensure he wouldn't. Make it worse for him, rather than Sirius, if he'd ever told. Like with the fooling around. Sirius they'd just dismiss as some pervert, but Regulus would be seen as a weakling, unable to resist even his own brother's advances. Such a substandard pureblood.

Michael Corleone strides out of a panicked restaurant as his bedroom door opens with a tired grunt. Regulus stands in the half-opened doorway, wand arm held out, azure light of a whispered Lumos reflecting dark, creeping shadows across his face.

"I couldn't sleep," he says softly.

Sirius drawls "So you decided to make sure I couldn't either?" and watches the deep blush of embarrassment spread across his younger brother's features, sharp and darkly prominent in the pale light.

When Regulus answers there's almost a resigned edge to his words, like he knows he's somehow being played for the fool, yet again, but Sirius had always found habits hard to break, "You were reading muggle paperbacks again." It's the _again _that startles him rather than the tone or the raised eyebrow, because he realises in an instant how he might've actually misjudged the other boy. It wouldn't have happened before Hogwarts, but they'd grown apart since then, opposing shouts of "GRYFFINDOR" and "SLYTHERIN" loosening the bond between them. Sirius had become friends with James, Remus and Peter, had formed the Marauders and Regulus had… Regulus had… He's not quite sure what Regulus had done because whenever he'd seen his brother it had either been alone, in the hallway crowd, the Great Hall, or in groups of various Slytherins and the occasional Ravenclaw. He supposes some of them must be his brother's friends, but he can't know for sure, because he's convinced himself that he doesn't care.

"Don't tell them," he mutters, though he knows it's probably unnecessary. If Regulus hadn't told them yet, what are the odds of him doing so now? Regulus just stands there uncertainly by the closed door, as Sirius walks over towards him, until their bodies are almost pressed together. Regulus doesn't move away, doesn't push Sirius away as he whispers " Don't tell them," like it's a prayer to a God that doesn't exist, and closes the distance between them. _Don't tell them, _as Regulus leans up and wraps his arms around Sirius' shoulders, his neck. _Don't tell them_, as Sirius' hands brush through curly hair the colour of shop-bought ink inside small bottles on the tidy shaves in Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop; and as soft and silky smooth like the many girls' he'd kissed, on so many different Hogsmeade days. Just _don't tell them, _over and over until he no longer knows what he means, the books, or the kiss or anything else he's kept hidden from his parents, his supposed "family". Just "don't tell them," over and over, because maybe if he say it enough, one of them will realise the answer.

* * *

To be honest, it was an accident, the first time Regulus saw them together. He'd left Barty Crouch and Walden McNair in Hogsmeade, bored with their rather lousy company and was taking the long way back to the castle, around by the Shrieking Shack and up to the side of the school instead of the usual front entrance, which too many Gryffindorks used. He's only just about passed the Shack, surprisingly deserted for a normal Hogsmeade trip, because it's somehow become almost a tourist attraction recently, when he sees his brother snogging Remus Lupin against a nearby tree.

Regulus freezes in place, and just stands there, thinking about how everything achingly familiar looks utterly different from another (skewed and wrong) perspective. He watches Lupin pressed up against the tree, Sirius' hands in Lupin's hair, Sirius swatting Lupin's hands away from his own hair, the way Sirius arches in pleasure against the half-blood pauper and sees instead his brother's face only few centimetres away from his, eyes dark and lips slightly parted; feels the memory of dark brick against the back of his robes, crumbling rock particles at the base of his neck, falling in frozen slow motion down his back; as his own breath turns to smoke and ash. He hears the faint echo of Sirius' moan and the way his words had broken, turning into lilting gasps.

Lupin looks up suddenly, eyes boring straight into Regulus' over his brother's shoulder. They stare at each other for a moment, Lupin quite obviously taking in Regulus' clenched hands and pale face, before he beaks away and mutters something to Sirius, who only looks over his shoulder for one long, silent moment before turning away and saying something Regulus can't quite hear. It doesn't matter really, because he understands the meaning all too well, had been constantly picking up on hints that are hardly subtle. _My brother doesn't matter_. He turns away as Sirius begins to kiss Lupin again, walking back up to the school. The sun shines, but he doesn't feel it because mentally he's still there, on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, watching the only boy he'd ever though himself in love with kiss someone else like none of it mattered at all.

* * *

Regulus is watching him again. There's the gazes over breakfast and dinner because his brother never eats lunch, and glares that are something more in the hallways. All in all, it's too obvious for a boy trying to keep a secret.

"Watching me again?" he hisses, as they bump into each other in a deserted corridor. His brother shrugs, the gesture carelessly graceful in a way that only inbred purebloods could ever manage, and that Sirius has always hated.

"They say to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer," he replies, and Sirius thinks that were that true, the other boy would be spending much more time with muggle-borns, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, all those people he disregards as beneath him, because they're the ones that eventually going to bring him down, make his suffer for his mistakes. He thinks that perhaps, he will do nothing to stop them.

"So which one am I?" he asks, and Regulus laughs, the sound echoing against the damp walls, casual cruelty bouncing back, in invisible constancy.

"Nothing," he replies, and means both and all and nothing at all.

Sirius hates that still, despite everything, despite the fact that he cares for James more, Regulus is still the one that can hurt him the most, stick the blade in and twist it, laugh as long, smooth fingers rub salt into ugly, stinging wounds that hurt more than the scratches he can never fully avoid at the full moon.

* * *

Sometimes Sirius thinks that the secret nearly chokes him, that he will implode if he keeps on living a lie. He can't stand lying to James, Remus and Peter, who are, after all, his best friends and therefore deserve to know. They accepted him despite his family, Remus despite his furry little problem; Peter despite his tendency to get them caught mid-prank and James despite his ridiculous mooning over Lily Evans of all people. In different ways, they're all appropriately fucked up. So he thinks they'd accept his relationship, no, this 'thing' with Regulus as well. Probably chalk it up to the madness that seemed to run in the Black blood and make crude jokes about "keeping it in the family."

Regulus doesn't agree.

He could do it without his permission of course, expose him to the world without his consent, but he won't. He doesn't want his brother's enmity, doesn't want to see those eyes turn from quicksilver, liquid mercury into the hard flints of icy glass that remind him of their father; frosted windows into a closed soul.

Above all, despite all his bravado, he simply doesn't want to lose Regulus, doesn't want his only real brother to hate him.

* * *

Regulus leans against one of the columns at the side of the Hogwarts courtyard, watching the rain fall and blur the landscape. He'd always like the way it looked different, more real perhaps than in deceiving sunlight and the stifling presence of too many Gryffindors. His hair had curled from the water, and it's still damp; his robes are a patchwork of dark greys and sharp black and he's very well aware that he probably looks ridiculous, but most people he cares to impress are safely inside. His brother and that pauper Lupin are still out, just heading in but apparently in no hurry, armed with Sirius' eternal disregard for the weather. They disappear for several moments, hidden behind the clump of bushes and some rare herbs Professor Sprout had planted; and when they emerge Sirius' lips are bright and shining scarlet and Lupin's robes are seem to be in even more disarray than usual, and Sirius' fucking hair is mussed up. He's gotten somewhat used to seeing the two together, snogging all over the place, but it still stings, because Regulus has never been allowed to even touch his brother's perfect hair. Sometimes, the bastard is vainer than Narcissa.

He knows the precise moment Sirius sees him, can feel the sudden, static energy in the air as his brother almost snaps into place. But the moment is short, and soon the over-confident smile is back, as lazy as a cat's on a warm summer day. He shakes Lupin off with a couple of muttered words, shakes his head at the half-blood's wary glances between them as he turns towards the side stairway leading straight to the second floor, then up to Gryffindor Tower.

Both of the Black brothers watch him go, but a mere second after he is gone, Regulus is knocked roughly against the passage wall. Gasping for air, he opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Sirius gets there first. Despite the fact that they'd done it several times by then, it feels different, because Sirius is different. He tastes like Lupin, like poor, dirty half-blood and Regulus tries to twist away in disgust. Sirius holds him in place, kissing him savagely. It's almost brutal, the way Sirius bites his lower lip to gain access and all Regulus can think is that in that moment, this is not his brother. His brother wouldn't kiss some half-blood then come to Regulus for sloppy seconds, almost as if punishing him for being something he can't help. But then his brother wouldn't have been sorted with those people anyway, wouldn't have let house boundaries push them apart and he thinks that maybe he doesn't really know Sirius anymore. He holds on to that thought as the dampness of the wall seeps into the back of his robes, as Sirius pulls away and pushes him onto his knees, unbuttoning his own robes clumsily (Sirius was never clumsy.) He doesn't cry as Sirius fucks his mouth, too intent on keeping his teeth covered, too intent on wishing the roles were reversed because he's not enjoying this part of them at all, because for the first time in his life he's almost afraid of his brother.

Later, breathing harshly and combing one hand through his hair, he asks Sirius why he'd done it, not fully knowing what he even means. It could be any of a number of things, starting this whole thing between them, been sorted into Gryffindor, forming the Marauders and kissing Lupin, pushing Regulus down and against the damp castle wall mere minutes ago. Sirius merely shrugs, barely looking up from his damp robes, as he pulls it back together.

"Because I could," he replies and Regulus watches his long slim fingers fly across black silk and doesn't realise how those words would haunt them both over the years, how a dim echo will be whispering that same phrase by every single decision to come; how it would eventually be their downfall.

* * *

"Your brother tried to kill me," says Severus Snape one November, slithering up to him in the library like an overgrown bat.

Regulus glances at him. There's a hint of distress in the older boy's flat onyx eyes, and denying it would be too obvious a lie. On the other hand, admitting it would be betraying Sirius, who is still his brother in some sense, even though some days Regulus can barely recognise him anymore. They're still brothers, no matter what either of them might have done, and family comes first, so he will always owe Sirius some loyalty, however undeserved.

He says nothing, and looks back down at his pages of rune translation. Eventually, Snape sighs and leaves him alone.

* * *

He can't try to pretend to be like Sirius, who doesn't even care at all anymore.

Although, in his defence, it hadn't exactly been his fault.

All the teachers were constantly saying to follow the older students' example, particularly the prefects and while no-one in their right mind would've ever made Sirius one of those, he was still family and Mother and Father used to tell him to be more like his older brother. Of course, reminds the little voice in his head, the one that sounds like Sirius talking to Snape, for the past few years they'd been doing just the opposite, telling _Sirius_ to be more like _Regulus. _Not that he ever listened, not like he ever tried; Sirius had always adamantly refused to change for anyone even (especially) their parents.

Sirius hexes passing students in the hallways. And all Regulus did was retaliate when that fifth year Gryffindor bitch Lucy McDeere (who he'd once walked in on fucking his brother in the classroom he used to go to in pursuit of some much-needed solitude,) had tried to hex him. But of course, it was Potter who saw him, Potter the oh so _perfect _head boy and Gryffindor to the core, with the classic Gryffindor close-minded prejudices, even against his best friend's brother. Which was why Regulus was now sitting in that old fool Dumbledore's office, and if that wasn't bad enough, Great Uncle Phineas Nigellus, the former headmaster who'd loathed teaching and most of his students, was in his heavily gilded frame, glowering at him and muttering something inaudible under his breath. Regulus had no doubt that the meeting would get reported back to his parents, and he would get one of those scathing letters they'd long given up on sending to Sirius.

He wouldn't have cared so much if this talk was simply about magic cast in the hallways (the rule which no one ever obeyed) or if she was there too. But of course not. Potter was too firm a believer in Gryffindor's supposed superiority, and despite the rather awkward fact that his own mother had once been a Slytherin, and in fact a relative of Regulus', his proclamations of "they're all conniving scum" was well-known throughout all four houses. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Dumbledore had been a Gryffindor himself and continued to have their mentality, even as the _supposedly_ impartial headmaster.

"Sherbet Lemon?" The headmaster offered, sliding a small bowl filled with light yellow ovals across the wooden desk. "I'm rather partial to them myself."

Regulus almost reaches for one, but he can still hear his mother's voice, or rather a faint echo of it in his head, yelling "Never accept anything from anyone you consider your enemy," and thinks that she would be even more disappointed with him if he did. Uncle Phineas is still watching.

So he doesn't, only leans back into the chair with a practiced nonchalance, and declines politely, because whatever the half-blind codger is about to accuse him of, Blacks had never been considered rude. He's perfected the art of being rude without appearing to be rude (and weren't appearances really everything?) and it has served him well. He's fairly certain he'd caught an approving glint in Father's eyes the last time he'd demonstrated it in front of the man.

"No? Oh well," Dumbledore taps his wand against the polished maple of his desk, and the black bowl zooms across faster than Severus Snape can run away from shampoo (and it isn't his fault if the voice in his head sounds just like Sirius, it's only right, it's only normal, Sirius is his _brother_.) "Let's get right on to business then." Dumbledore rests a wrinkled forearm on the desk and leans slightly forward, examining Regulus intently. Finally he says "I cannot allow the bullying of other students to happen in my school, Mr Black."

Regulus wants to laugh. He wants to point out that he obviously can, that he obviously not only tolerates it but flat-out encourages it. After all, he'd made Potter Head Boy and gave him all the power, all the authority, to make his bullying of other students, particularly Slytherins, particularly Snape, even more vicious than in previous years. Because Potter and his numerous supporters could now claim that it wasn't bullying without using their overused "putting them in their proper place" excuse, simply because Potter could now dock points and set up detentions for falsified offences and absolutely ridiculous infractions. Just an hour ago, he'd taken twenty house points from Slytherin for Snape breathing. Even Regulus, who is hardly Snape's greatest fan, was taken back at Potter's audacity, and the absurdness of it all.

But he doesn't laugh, because he only ever found hypocrisy amusing when it worked to his advantage, and this is so much not the case that he almost has to laugh simply to react in any way.

"What would you call Potter's actions, then?" he asks numbly. "Or my brother's?"

"James has long ago stopped putting fellow students in any unwanted situations," Dumbledore states, sounding so righteously certain that perhaps Regulus should find this amusing, after all. A man largely regarded as the greatest wizard alive outsmarted by a mediocre schoolboy. But it's not funny, not even to him, frankly it's outrageous and it almost scared him. If Potter can fool Dumbledore so easily, who else will he be able to fool? Perhaps there is a much darker, henceforth unnoticed side to the Marauders.

He notices that Dumbledore hadn't said anything regarding Sirius and comments idly on it. "And my brother?" he repeats, striving for an uncaring tone. Dumbledore's eyes sharpen, but when he answers, his tone is deceptively mild, almost enquiring.

"I was not aware you had a brother anymore, Mr Black."

Well. If that's the way they're going to play it; if they're spinning webs of delicate denial, then he can outspin the very masters. After all, hadn't he been doing that all his life?

* * *

Half an hour later, he walks into the boys' lavatory on the first floor, quietly seething. Three weeks detention for something that hadn't even been his fault, and right before their first Quidditch game of the season. The room is nearly deserted, everyone else busy in the Great Hall, stuffing themselves with whatever the Hogwarts House-Elves have decided to pass off as cooked, nutritious food this time, but he realises that he vaguely knows the other occupant. Evan Rosier, a quiet Slytherin in Sirius' year. Fairly average looking, and quiet even by Slytherin's standards, but widely acknowledged as almost a genius at Arithmancy, and an impressive dueller.

"Rosier" he acknowledged with a shallow nod.

"Black," his companion returned the gesture, rubbing his hands with pearly white soap. "What did the old geezer give you?"

"Three weeks detention," Regulus replies, unable to quite keep the irritation from surfacing in his voice.

"Want to get some revenge?" Rosier turns to him, a twisted smile, almost a grimace really, marring his features, and Regulus doesn't smile back. "I know some people that can help you." And he sticks out his hand, still glistening with soapy water, for a handshake, the universal sign of a sealed deal and Regulus knows that this is it.

He wants to say that he can do it just fine independently, but there's a somewhat feral look in Rosier's irises, and Regulus finds himself curiously intrigued. So he reaches out and grasps the older boy's wet palm with his own, and is too well brought-up to wince at the audible sound, almost that of a bubble bursting, nor at the slimy slickness.

At the time, it doesn't seem like a mistake. Perhaps that should've been his first warning.

After all, he only did it because he could, and Sirius wouldn't.

* * *

He knows it's wrong, he knows that they really, really shouldn't be doing this. But since that day, behind the broomshed when he'd first kissed Regulus, he hadn't been able to pull away, not fully, not nearly enough. It wasn't like he hadn't tried his best to substitute his brother with so many others, hot girls and handsome boys, with kisses in Hogsmeade and gropes in abandoned classrooms. With people he could actually have a relationship that wasn't secret, wasn't hidden away in darkened corners and shameless moans intercepting hissed insults. He'd tried with Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs; because Slytherins were too close, too real and there wasn't a single one of them that wasn't a backstabbing fiend in the end. He'd fucked Lucy McDeere in the third-floor classroom he knew Regulus liked to study in and let Mike Harris blow him in the Quidditch changing rooms after a Gryffindor-Slytherin game instead of lingering behind after everyone else had gone, to fuck Regulus like he'd used to. He even kisses Remus by the Shrieking Shack, knowing that if they stay there for long enough, his brother will come by, counting on the place's recent popularity.

He makes sure to push Regulus away with his actions rather than his words though, knowing full well that every hateful word would have been a lie and Sirius hates lying. Perhaps it's because he's not a Slytherin, not like the rest of his inbred family (and if there isn't irony in that comment then there's no such thing as irony anymore) but the words turn to burning acid inside his mouth and choke him, pretty promises versus petty, cowardly denials. He lets the others make his excuses to the professors for him very time they get caught, and trusts them not to say anything.

So Sirius lets it all go, lets Regulus push him away and doesn't even confront the other boy when he know he's become a Death Eater. Fuck Remus, who keeps reminding him that he has no proof; this is his brother, this is his (past) lover, except that there was never particularly much love between them, and the little there had been had long dwindled away, eroded away by long, hard years of easy mistrust and careless manipulation.

He lets Regulus go, because inwardly he knows there's not much he could have done to stop him, just like he couldn't have stopped himself from pursuing him all that time (and even now clenched hands and bitten nails and scratches he tells the others are simply by-products of their full moon adventures are painful testaments of just how hard it is to force yourself to resist.) He hadn't been able to stop all of their encounters, or his own obsession with a boy who only found him convenient enough to put up with for a couple of years, and so easy to drop after it became otherwise. The boy who now doubtlessly considered Sirius his enemy, in a war they should've been no part of (surely Dumbledore, with all his power and influence, could have managed to defeat another dark wizard, like he had Grindelwald so many years ago?)

Sirius could never have brought himself to join the Death Eaters, not even for Regulus, so he protects his brother the only other way he knows of. He joins the opposing side instead, deeply thankful for Dumbledore's order not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary, like in self-defence and hopes Regulus will not be that foolish. He prays to the god he's never believed in that they'll never meet on the battlefield, and pretends not to care about any of those pure-blooded bastards, trying in vain to ignore the unwanted memories of what used to be his family.

* * *

Being a Death Eater at Hogwarts is like walking across a badly supported tightrope, looking down the whole time and just trying not to fall. It's like there's an invisible net wrapped around him tightly to keep him up, keep him balanced, but if he makes a single wrong move the whole structure will crumble apart, and he will slip and fall. It's being cautious to the point of paranoia, figuratively glancing over your own shoulder the whole time, in case someone unwanted sees, realises what he's become a part of.

Regulus is fucking terrified.

He stares at the cold stone floor of the Malfoys' dungeons during meetings, at the damp, darkened patches that not even the house-elves seem to be able to scrub away, until the dust-painted patterns, drawn in sharp slashes and blurred cursive almost replace the flash of emerald green light he sees, as if burnt onto his eyelids, every time he closes his eyes.

The ancient stone speaks to him in a way that Hogwarts is beginning to do as well, in dust and misty shadows across darkened doorways, dreamily ethereal. This is the language of loneliness; this is the language of missing Sirius. He tries to convince himself that it's all because of Sirius' upcoming NEWTs, that even his brother has to study, but he knows its all hopeless delusions. Regulus is not blind to the triumphant smirks Lupin has been directing at him recently, just because he has Sirius' attentions now, nor to little Peter Pettigrew's pitying glances from over by the Gryffindor table. Even Potter's tag-a-long knows Sirius has been ignoring him.

He'd like to blame their joint influence, or even Potter's, but only Gryffindors are stubborn enough to blame others in the face of undeniably contradicting proof, and the one thing he'll never be is one of them. Perhaps that's part of the whole problem. Because if he had been, he probably wouldn't have ever joined the Death Eaters; wouldn't be living this life at all.

And Regulus Black knows that, somehow, impossibly, Sirius has found him out.

* * *

One of Regulus' favourite possessions is a worn, well-handled photograph he'd once bought from Mr Brezynski, a visiting peddler, down in the shadows of Knockturn Alley. It's of a blonde, fair-skinned woman dressed in plain black robes like at the Death Eaters' initiation, standing just before the tell-tale flash of emerald green kills her, and she falls, as beautifully graceful as the Russian dancers in Tchaikovsky's famous ballets, like Sirius tossing his head back to laugh.

The sequence plays over and over; he dreams it over and over with varying victims. Mother and Father, who never cared, who'd just wanted the perfect pureblood son. Bellatrix, who had encouraged him. Andromeda, who'd broken away, and hadn't cared at all that her feeble explanations fell on deaf ears and never even attempted to push him harder to side with her, because given he right incentive he would've done. Cissy, who'd known how it really was and hadn't thought to warn him, and Evan Rosier, who'd first persuaded him to join. Dumbledore, because he hadn't been such a sanctiomonious bastard, hadn't been that opposing factor, with that unrelenting favouritism towards his old house, he'd have had no reason to listen to Rosier in the first place. Slughorn, for not being brave enough to stand up to Dumbledore, instead choosing to entrap them in his own web of favouritism, not noticing that none of it made the situation equal. Nameless Death Eaters, because if there were less of them, then rebellion may have been just that bit more possible. The Dark Lord, because if there was no Dark Lord, than there was no one he owed the loyalty of fear to, that tithe of screams wrought by torture and pain, and the bodies that stained his hands scarlet with the blood the memory of which wouldn't stop flowing in his mind, staining his hands red with guilt he's become too numb to feel. Sirius, because Regulus had defined himself in relation to Sirius for practically all his life, probably will even after Sirius is long dead, buried in a tomb of ivory and marble, with indentations of deep, low murmurs and a loud yell of his name.

The idea of Sirius being dead should not be so familiar to him. But the war has started, and the fight for the purity of wizardkind has begun, started by a man who should be judged and condemned by his own rules, and Regulus does not know what to believe anymore.

He dreams with ever increasing intensity, hard nightmares that leave him gasping for shallow breath in hazy morning light. Dreams of drowning, and falling and blood and death and gore. Always the blood, always the death, nowadays. Before, during the holidays at least, when the nightmares were still rare and he'd thought them insignificant for the most part, he could have crept across to Sirius' room and slid under the warm, high thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, to the even warmer body underneath. He could have let Sirius fuck the disturbing memories out of his mind, until the harsh marks caused by his own too-tight gripping of the headboard were his only reminders of something he couldn't quite remember anymore.

That's no longer an option, however and Sirius is gone. And Regulus is left alone, in an empty shell of a house with his three-quarters-mad mother and the blurry remnants of dreams and hopes, nightmares and memories. Perhaps madness is hereditary too, perhaps the ever thin line between fantasy and reality is blurring for him too, just like it had for her. Perhaps Sirius is already dead.

Perhaps none of it matters at all, and they are all living in a dream, mere figments of someone else's imagination, someone who's forgotten quite how to wake up. Perhaps it doesn't matter what any of them do.

Regulus stands, and lets his hand slide to the heavy silver locket in his left side pocket, barely noticing the picture fall noiselessly to the floor. Perhaps it doesn't matter if he betrays the Dark Lord.

He almost laughs, and calls out for Kreacher.

* * *

In the end, as Regulus falls down towards the smooth, eroded sand at the bottom of the lake, grasped by crawling hands with snapped, grasping fingers, all he can see is Sirius.

Sirius Black did not grow up hating his family, nor did he die so. There was a lot of stuff in between, harsh words hissed when endearments would've hurt too much and two boys playing roles that got so familiar they could no longer tell where the act ended and the truth began.

_April is the cruellest month._

Perhaps it was not only the war that tore them apart. Maybe they did that well enough on their own.


End file.
